The Children's Aid Blog

Approached by a loan seller, Theodora Roach agreed to what turned out to be a balloon loan. Later, she got help through a government program and the Neediest Cases Fund.

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund recently featured this Children’s Aid story, written by Jennifer Mascia, about Theodora Roach and how she received help after unknowingly entering into a balloon loan. Below is an excerpt from the original article:

Theodora Roach’s subprime journey started with a knock at the door.

In 2004, the Fidelity Group sent sales representatives to her block in Flatlands, Brooklyn, where, in 1997, she and a cousin had bought a three-bedroom home for $169,000. The sales agents were offering a refinancing and loan package they said could lower her mortgage payments.

Ms. Roach had already borrowed $25,000 against the equity in her home — first to finish the basement, then to help cover her payments because her cousin, a correction officer, disappeared, along with her half of the $1,500-a-month mortgage.

Behind on her first mortgage, and to avoid a lien on the home, which she shared with her mother and adult daughter, Ms. Roach, 58, accepted the offer.

Raising a family in New York City isn’t an easy task to accomplish. It takes hard work, a lot of love, and a lot of planning. At The Children’s Aid Society we have created a groundbreaking new program to help parents with the task of planning – for themselves, for their family, and for their future.

Families with a Future is a unique new program which addresses this often daunting challenge, by acknowledging that sometimes we may need a Life Coach. The Life Coach is a key component of the Families with a Future program, providing assistance to parents in order to help them succeed and prosper in a long term, sustainable way.

Working with parents both one-on-one and in group settings, the Life Coach helps parents identify long term goals and ways to achieve them, while building a support network that parents can turn to for guidance. The Families with a Future program is geared towards motivated, creative, self-sufficient individuals, who will work hard to implement the plans they make with their Life Coach.

This Children’s Aid Life Coach can also assist parents in making tough decisions regarding health insurance, housing, and other services. In addition, the program offers grants for qualifying individuals, to help themselves build a better future. In the past, participants have used the money to attend highly regarded New York institutions such as the City University of New York.

Children’s Aid is committed to helping families through mentorship. Whether it’s with our Families with a Future program designed for parents or through various youth development programs – aimed at helping children grow to successful independence – our goal is the same: a bright, prosperous future for New York City families.

In this new video, called Have You Heard of the Children’s Aid Society in New York?, we ran into a variety of New Yorkers where some knew the name and others weren’t sure, so in light of that, we are delighted to present our 150 year old organization to you where our long-term goal is to support the underserved children of New York City, from birth to young adulthood.

One New York City father in the video said it best: “I love my kids very much and… if something happened to me…it’s nice to know that there are organizations out there (like The Children’s Aid Society) who can really step up and help people in need.”

For more information on our programs and services, go to our website or call us at (212) 949-4800. Remember, you canmake a difference.

After struggling in high school, Nazaury Delgado, 19, was accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology on a full scholarship (click for more photos)

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund recently featured this Children’s Aid story, written by Jennifer Lee, about Nazaury Delgado’s struggle to change from likely high school drop-out to college student. Below is an excerpt from the original article:

In March Nazaury Delgado shyly showed his iPod Touch to an art teacher, flicking his finger across the images he had created with Photoshop on his home computer.

The teacher, Cornelius Van Wright, asked if he could print them out. After he had looked at them again, Mr. Van Wright hurriedly summoned the rest of the teachers at the Fred Dolan Art Academy, a Saturday arts program that works with at-risk teenagers in the Bronx.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said Neil Waldman, an illustrator who founded the arts program, and who was stunned by the carefully manipulated overlays of faces and colorful textures. “I almost fell on my face. The work was so remarkable.”

For years, Mr. Delgado, then a high school senior, had been considered a solid, if unremarkable, artist in the program — though one who had benefited from its discipline. At 11, he had found his father dying of a drug overdose in the bedroom. He fell in with the wrong circle of friends, had run-ins with the police and straddled the line of failing classes. He suffers from a learning disability that makes reading difficult.

But in his junior year, he had asked Mr. Waldman, “Is it too late for me?”

It wasn’t. If he focused on his art and schoolwork, he was told, he could graduate from high school and perhaps go to a community college.

“I decided to become a different person, change my attitude,” said Mr. Delgado, now 19.

But as the teachers looked at the images, they realized that Mr. Delgado should be applying to the top art schools in the nation. With just one week before the last round of applications were due at many schools, he and his teachers scrambled to get the full slate of requirements done: a self-portrait, a three-dimensional model, a logo and an artistic interpretation of the quotation “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

And they also included a portfolio of his computer-manipulated pieces. While the art academy assignments had left him uninspired, the flexibility of Photoshop empowered Mr. Delgado. Often working through the night, he transformed humdrum photos taken with a budget camera into gripping, rippling portraits using transparencies, overlays and gradients.

“There are some people who have an innate ability to create spectacle, something innate that you can’t teach,” Mr. Waldman said.

Most of us use credit as an ordinary part of our financial life; however, excessive credit use can cause turmoil for every family which means it is critical to understand how credit works and impacts our lives. With the hidden fees and expenses in the fine print, borrowing money can be a complicated process, negatively impacting your Credit Rating.

The Children’s Aid Society knows how difficult it is to manage your credit which is why we have made this an important part of our advocacy effort.Understanding creditis the first step in attaining financial freedom and flexibility.

According to the Federal Reserve, levels of consumer credit debt in the United States have grown steadily over the last several years. Many consumers are drowning in debt, and many credit cards companies are raising fees, responding to record defaults and new regulations for 2010. Interest rates and fees are impacting a record number of consumers. By providing information to helpunderstand their credit history, Children’s Aid encourages families to earn about important topics such as:

Do’s and Don’ts of Plastic

Getting a Copy of Your Credit Report

Forms of Credit

Interest Rates and Charges

Over-Extended or Out-of Control Credit

With the financial education provided by Children’s Aid, families can get the information and assistance needed to understand these credit issues that impact their future solvency. With in-depth information and advocacy publications, in both English and Spanish, individuals and families learn to build a stronger future!

The event, while always a chilly one, is a favorite among the children and families. The parade, coordinated by El Museo del Barrio, has everything needed to celebrate the special holiday: music, floats, special honorary kings, and even camels!

The Head Start families did a lot to prepare for the big day. Parents and children created crowns to wear and designed signs to carry. The teachers read books about the day’s traditions. A representative from El Museo even came to the Center to give a presentation on the history of Three Kings Day. As always, it was an honor for everyone to participate in such a special community event.

Moses McRae and Jazmyn Benjamin, both 15, were at Madison Square Garden, where workers, officials and athletes served as interview subjects and mentors to the students.

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund recently featured this Children’s Aid story, written by Vincent M. Mallozzi, about Moses McRae and Jazmyn Benjamin and their recent opportunity to interview workers, officials and athletes at Madison Square Garden. Below is an excerpt from the original article.

Last month at Madison Square Garden, Moses McRae, 15, conducted an interview with Danilo Gallinari of the Knicks:

“Who do you think are the toughest opponents in the league?” Moses asked Mr. Gallinari, a 6-foot-10-inch forward, shortly before a game against the Atlanta Hawks.

“There are many tough opponents,” Mr. Gallinari said. “But I would have to say that Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are two of the toughest.”

Moses, a sophomore at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan, is studying television production — but not in high school. He is one of 10 children from low-income communities who are taking part in Hope Leadership Academy, which is run by the Children’s Aid Society, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

“My interview strategy was to memorize as many questions as possible and to write some key words down on paper to help me remember questions I might have forgotten to ask,” Moses said after the interview, which he conducted along with Jessica Gooden, 15, a student at Frederick Douglass Academy II in Harlem, where she lives.

Since 2007, Hope Leadership Academy has worked with the Garden of Dreams Foundation to form the MSG Classroom program, which teaches children about jobs in television, including announcing, producing, directing and creating graphics.

The students use Madison Square Garden as their laboratory, and Garden employees and officials, as well as athletes — from the Knicks, the Rangers, the Liberty, MSG Entertainment and the music channel Fuse — serve as interview subjects and mentors.

“This has been an extremely successful partnership,” said Michael Roberts, assistant division director for adolescent services at the Children’s Aid Society. “This is a very unique program, because it is not just about giving something to a child to help out in an immediate crisis, but these are real-world skills these children are learning, skills that will help them find jobs in the future.”

On Monday January 4th, The Children’s Aid Society’s Early Childhood department sponsored an all-day division-wide professional development workshop for its teachers to kick off the 2010 year. Lisa Murphy, better known as the Ooey Gooey Lady, came to The Philip Coltoff Center at Greenwich Village to talk to a group of over 120 CAS early childhood educators from across 10 centers about strategies for incorporating science and mathematics into their curriculum.

Her workshop titled Fizzle, Bubble Pop & Wow, provided ideas for simple science experiments for young children. For example, teachers learned how to create mini-explosions and different materials using everyday household ingredients such as baking soda and vinegar. Teachers came away from the workshop refreshed and invigorated for the New Year.

Seventy-five children and their families took part in the evening of dinner, dancing and art. Keeping with the theme of the day, children decorated crowns with glitter and jewels. Since camels were the preferred method of transportation for the three wise men, many in attendance constructed and decorated paper camels.

The highlight of the evening came when toys were given to the children by the New York Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Ten members, including the Chapter’s President Edward Montenegro(pictured), joined the evening's festivities and, thanks to the toys, quickly became the most popular people in the room. Almost as soon as the gifts were in the children’s hands, the engineers were fast at work helping the little ones assemble their new toys. Everyone had a wonderful time; A future engineer may have been born that evening too!

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund recently featured this Children’s Aid story about Maria Cruz de Leon and how Children’s Aid helped improve her reading. Below is an excerpt from the original article by Daniel Slotnik.

The speakers behind the green sofa and love seat in the sunny living room of Rosa Cruz’s Washington Heights apartment were silent as Ms. Cruz’s 10-year-old granddaughter, Maria Cruz de Leon, shyly danced.

Maria said she loved dancing and singing, but she liked dancing more because “when I’m dancing, I just feel like I’m alone and everybody’s watching me.”

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Sights and Sounds of Children's Aid

Click "play" below to watch youth from across New York City take part in the Iron Go!Chefs Competition, one of many programs at Children's Aid that teaches young people how to cook and enjoy healthy foods.

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The Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School officially opened its doors with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on Monday, August 27, 2012. Among the 150 guests in attendance were students, families, friends, Children’s Aid Society and charter school staff, Senator Gustavo Rivera, Deputy Bronx Borough President Aurelia Greene and Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg.